Chicopee, 1/18/05, Shirley J. Adams, of Westfield, a test technician with MicroTek tests a wire harness on the factory floor. Employees at MicroTek will pay a little bit more for their health insurance in 2014, the first year that parts of the Affordable Care Act go into effect.
(David Molnar)

BOSTON — Employees of MicroTek in Chicopee will be paying a little bit more for their health insurance in 2014, as some provisions of the Affordable Care Act begin to kick in. But the impact will not be major.

MicroTek CEO Anne Paradis said the company was able to renew its health coverage for January and offer the same two plans it has previously. The new rates are not unusually high.

“Every year when we renew our health insurance, it goes up. This year was no different,” Paradis said. “It was a manageable amount that we could absorb between asking employees to contribute a bit more and having the company contributing a bit more.”

New data from the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a business trade group, indicates MicroTek’s experience is not unusual. Many businesses are seeing only small increases or even decreases in their premiums.

Others, however, are not so fortunate. The preliminary data from AIM, one of the earliest indicators of the impact of the Affordable Care Act on actual insurance premiums being offered to businesses, show the Affordable Care Act has caused significant variability in premiums.

While some businesses will actually see a small decrease in premiums, a greater number of businesses are seeing their premiums rise by 10 to 29 percent, and a few are seeing even greater spikes.

“These numbers are pretty much in line with what we’ve been expecting and certainly with what the health insurance companies developed in their modeling,” said Christopher Geehern, a spokesman for AIM.

AIM is conducting a survey of its members to determine the effect of the Affordable Care Act on insurance premiums for those businesses that must renew their plans in January, the first time parts of the the new law will be in effect. The group will conduct an additional survey in March, since many small businesses renew their premiums in April.

So far, the group has received 101 responses from businesses buying insurance in the small group market. Although the number is too small for a scientific sample, it does provide some early indication of what businesses will see going forward.

Of those, Geehern said, 59 percent of businesses are seeing their premiums increase, 27 percent are seeing their premiums decrease and 14 percent are seeing their premiums remain flat. Since health insurance premiums typically increase every year, the most notable thing about the results is how variable those changes are.

All of those who saw their premiums decrease saw drops of less than 9 percent, Geehern said. The increases were more variable.

Among all respondents, 27 percent saw their premiums increase by less than 9 percent; 17 percent increased between 10 and 19 percent; 13 percent increased between 20 and 29 percent; and 2 percent increased between 30 and 49 percent.

The variability worries businesses who will not get renewal notices until later this year.

“We’re expecting the worst,” said Kate Putnam, president of Package Machinery in Holyoke. “As a small employer with older employees, it’s not going to look pretty, and we’ve heard the rumors that there could be a 50 percent increase in insurance rates.”

Among those survey respondents who will see increases, 40 percent said they plan to make changes to their health-insurance offerings. Of those, 30 percent will increase deductibles or co-pays and 18 percent plan to drop coverage altogether, according to AIM. (The option of dropping coverage will become more difficult in 2015 once the employer mandate kicks in.)

The basic cost of an average Massachusetts health plan is not rising significantly in 2014. According to information released in August by the state Division of Insurance, the average base rate for health-insurance premiums in the individual and small group market will increase by just 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2014.

However, the base rate only reflects the actual cost of health care, plus fees and taxes. Insurance premiums also reflect factors unique to the person or group buying insurance – things like age, family composition and the number of people in an insurance pool.

It is in those additional factors where the Affordable Care Act will affect different businesses in different ways. Business groups have warned for months that changes in the way insurers use “rating factors” to calculate premiums will cause rate swings, similar to what AIM is seeing in its survey.

Massachusetts’ 2007 health-care reform let insurers use 11 rating factors when determining the cost of a health plan for an individual or small group — things like age, industry, participation in a wellness plan, the size of the group insured by the plan and the use of a group purchasing cooperative. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to use just four factors: age, geography, tobacco use and family composition. The state asked for a waiver from the change, but was only granted a three-year transition period.

State insurance commissioner Joseph Murphy said Massachusetts has not done a formal survey to collect information about final premium prices. So there is no comprehensive data available yet about prices for Massachusetts insurance plans in 2014.

Murphy said, however, premiums will vary based on the characteristics of the group, including factors such as age, size and how the group was rated in the past. He said smaller businesses, those with one to five employees, are likely to see rates decrease, while companies with 25 to 50 employees could see increases.

Murphy said businesses that see increases, or are worried about increases, should shop around. “If they saw a modest premium increase, they can always talk to their broker or go to the exchange and look at whatever options might be available to them to mitigate potential increases,” Murphy said.

Geehern said the ratings factors are “the largest single part” of the variability.

Jim Kessler, general counsel at Health New England in Springfield, said another factor impacting premiums is “list billing.” Previously, Health New England would base insurance rates on the average age of a company’s employees. It would estimate that every family had two and a fraction children.

Now, the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to calculate every individual’s premium based on actual age and family size and base a company’s premiums on that.

So, for example, a small company with lots of large families will see higher premiums.

“The change in rating methodology means there are winners and losers,” Kessler said. “It’s what we expected going in and what we’ve seen as rates have come out.”

Ciuffreda said he believes some of the increases are also due to a provision in the law that requires insurers to set rates annually, rather than quarterly, as Massachusetts has been doing, causing insurers to be more conservative with their cost estimates.

Ciuffreda said the most difficult part is not the rate increases, with many businesses seeing small increases or decreases, but the uncertainty facing businesses that do not know what costs will be.

“We had a system that was working, and now we’re going into a different system and we’re not sure it’s going to work or not,” Ciuffreda said. “That makes it very difficult for businesses to do a five-year plan.”

Dave Ratner, owner of Agawam-based Dave's Soda and Pet City, which has 130 employees, said he worries rates will “go sky high” when the company renews its plan in September due to the rating factor change because small businesses will no longer be able to use buying cooperatives to stay competitive with big businesses.

“What’s going to happen is all the good work that the state has done in the last seven years since Romneycare’s been in is going to come unraveled,” Ratner said.

Deputy insurance commissioner Kevin Beagan said the state understands that some businesses may look at self-insuring their companies or other means to cut costs.

“Obviously, the result we’re not looking for is for people to drop coverage,” he said. “We’re trying to find ways keep it as affordable as possible.”

Beagan pointed to the state’s request for a waiver from the ratings factor change and to additional tools, such as participation in wellness programs, that are available to help mitigate cost increases.